Hilary Hahn, Valentina Lisitsa review: dynamic duo

MUSIC REVIEW

Published 4:00 am, Monday, February 21, 2011

Violinist Hilary Hahn will perform with the San Francisco Symphony on Wednesday, November 26, Friday, November 28 and Saturday, November 29 at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco.

Violinist Hilary Hahn will perform with the San Francisco Symphony on Wednesday, November 26, Friday, November 28 and Saturday, November 29 at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco.

Photo: Mathias Bothor/Deutsche Grammoph

Hilary Hahn, Valentina Lisitsa review: dynamic duo

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Given that the violinist Hilary Hahn can play anything at all - and do it with precision, fervor and beauty - think how lucky we are that her restless artistic curiosity continues to take her in new and fascinating directions.

Hahn's magnificent duo recital with the formidable pianist Valentina Lisitsa in Herbst Theatre on Saturday night was a triumph of both execution and imaginative programming.

Yes, Bach and Beethoven were in the lineup, their music performed with spellbinding fluency and eloquence. But how many musicians would think to pair those offerings with sonatas by Charles Ives and George Antheil? The combination made Saturday's recital, presented by San Francisco Performances, a highlight of the still-young year.

Ives' Sonata No. 4, subtitled "Children's Day at the Camp Meeting," is a brief and characteristically nostalgic score, peppered with quotations of familiar tunes and suffused - especially in the central slow movement - with the gauzy haze of memory. Lisitsa supplied the gauze, delicately and tenderly, and Hahn's wiry, forthright playing supplied the through line.

Even more compelling was Antheil's Sonata No. 1 from 1923, a fascinating example of the anxiety of influence. The first of the sonata's four movements is so heavily and explicitly indebted to "L'Histoire du soldat" that Stravinsky could have sued Antheil for plagiarism.

But thereafter, Antheil takes off into his own inventive world, one marked by percussive rhythms quite different in tone from Stravinsky's, and fierce, dreamy bursts of melody. Hahn and Lisitsa played the piece with superb authority.

The more traditional repertoire was no less exciting, including a graceful yet sinewy performance of Beethoven's "Spring" Sonata and a brilliant performance of Bach's B-Minor Partita.

Hahn embraced the history of show-offy violin playing with Fritz Kreisler's "Variations on a Theme by Corelli," done with fearless exhibitionism, and his lilting "Schön Rosmarin" as a final encore. The prior encores, one for each participant, were the Preludio from Bach's E-Major Partita and, from Lisitsa, a gorgeous rendition of Chopin's Nocturne in E-Flat, Op. 9, No. 2.